Today was an off day for me. I woke after having slept for almost 9 hours (I know! And during a convention, no less.) and didn’t feel rested. I got up, left the hotel and grabbed some breakfast from a nearby 24-hour food joint. Not even three cups of coffee and a decent veggie omelet set me right. I got to the convention and took a look at the schedule for the morning. As I scanned the pages, I realized that I still wanted to run something.

I managed to get a sign-up sheet to the tables and waited with my buddy Ron for other players to show up. It was almost a repeat of the previous night. We managed to snag one additional player and I ran my Deadlands session. Without good reason, I did not take out my voice recorder, so I also have no audio of this session.

It went fairly well, with the players feeding into the scenario in ways that surprised me. I still felt that I was off my game and that off-ness was highlighted by a few missteps that I made that extended the scenario longer than it should have gone and that led to us not finishing things. There was a raffle taking place as part of the convention and they called for everyone to the raffle when we were in the middle of what was possibly the climactic final confrontation with the bad guy.

What was really odd to me was that this was the same scenario that I ran for some Gamer’s Haven folks at GenCon, and it went nothing like I expected it to. Of course, with different players, you’re going to have that. However, the differences were so marked that I have to chalk them up to decisions that I made as GM. The session didn’t go poorly, but I felt I could have done a better job.

Following that, we had the auction that led directly into what would have been the last game of the day for me… but I left. I wasn’t feeling it, frankly. It had nothing to do with the game itself (which was How We Came to Live Here, a game I still need to review) and everything to do with how I felt. I needed food and I just felt the desire to be home. As I sit on my couch, writing this post, I feel I made the right choice. If I had proceeded right to the game, without having eaten, I would have been in no shape to make the trip home and, in fact, would be on the road right now.

I’ve got more to say about GASP-Con, but I’ll save it for my wrap-up post tomorrow. I will say that, as with every convention I’ve been to, I learned some lessons about convention-going and about myself as a gamer. Even if those lessons come hard, they’re good to learn.

I love games, and I love to write about games. Hopefully when I write about games, you'll find something to like. I actively play Pathfinder and Savage Worlds, but am always willing to give something new a try. Follow me on Twitter, and check out my openly developed campaign setting for Pathfinder, Savage World, and Fate: Sand & Steam.